View full size(Press-Register/John David Mercer)Music fans are seen on the beach at first The Hangout Beach, Music and Arts Festival on Friday, May 14, 2010, in Gulf Shores, Ala. (Press-Register/John David Mercer)

GULF SHORES, Ala. — There may be no better way for the Alabama coast to begin to rebound from oil-stained 2010 than to launch this year’s spring and summer tourism season with one of the biggest music festivals in the nation.

Rolling Stone magazine mentioned the event on its website. One of the festival’s main acts, The Black Keys, nominated for four Grammy awards, is arguably the hottest rock band in the world. There’ll be the jam band juggernaut, Widespread Panic, with a huge fan base of its own.

And the headliner, Paul Simon, is inarguably a legend.

The festival’s founder, Shaul Zislin, said discounted tickets sold out in minutes, with purchases in all but a handful of states, and Zislin said he wants to hit all 50.

“Forget the oil spill for a second,” said Zislin, who owns The Hangout, an 18,000-square-foot restaurant at the base of Ala. 59, and the Surf Style store chain. “Forget all that. We’re bringing a world-class event to Gulf Shores, Alabama.

“Well, I may be jumping ahead of myself — a national event. But our sights are very high.”

So on an otherwise slow weekend for beach tourism, May 20 to 22, the festival promises to attract upwards of 35,000 people.

“If we’re going to have a great year, this is a great way to kick it off,” said Mike Foster, vice president of marketing with Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism. “There’s nothing in the playbook that will generate this amount of people in town with a single event.”

While a successful festival should bring in millions in revenue, no one has suggested that it would foretell tourism prosperity for the rest of the year.

“I don’t think you can make that big of a leap of faith,” Gulf Shores Councilman Jason Dyken said. “But having a successful Hangout Music Festival, or any other events, are instrumental in getting the coast back on its feet and surviving this and succeeding into the future.”

Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft stresses erasing the misconception about the status of the beaches while attracting new tourists to the area.

“It’s just a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase the beach right at the beginning of our season,” Kennon said.

Zislin called the festival “the most important economic event in the area. It’s definitely going to generate the most good vibe in the area for years to come.”

Simply put, an event that attracts large crowds means that more money will be spent in the restaurants, bars and shops along the beach, Foster said.

The festival can help send a message to those worried that oil is still on the shores that: “You have nothing to worry about when you come down with your girlfriend, your buddies or your family,” Foster said. “There’s nothing here that’s going to make you not have a good time.”

He plans to reach out to concert-goers after the festival via social networks and gauge their opinion on the area.

“This is worth millions in advertising,” Zislin said. “The CVB cannot afford to buy that type of exposure — unless it’s something like this. I’m not ignoring (the oil spill) out of arrogance. It’s still a factor that needs to be dealt with. There’s a lot of marketing and PR that needs to be done to save this season. And I don’t think the festival is enough by itself.”

But, he continued, those who see clean white beaches for themselves are likely to spread the word to their friends and family, which is a form of marketing that tourism experts have been pushing ever since the oil stopped washing ashore.

“There’s got to be a hook,” Zislin said. “We’ve got to make them come and hook them. And once we show them our phenomenal amenities, then our job becomes easy.”